THE Lynda Spence murder trial cracked open the influence of Albanian gangs on certain underworld dealings in Glasgow.
Senior law enforcers say the Albanian mafia concerns them more than any other inter-national crime group trying to muscle in to Scotland's lucrative market for drugs and vice.
Over the past 15 years, Albanian mafias have spread beyond well their own backyards.
Glasgow started taking asylum seekers from the Balkans in relatively large numbers in 2001. Most of them, of course, entirely law abiding and genuinely fleeing the region's ethnic cleansing, terror and violent corruption. However, the emergence of an ethnic Albanian community in the city gave the Albanian mafia – the Mafia Shqiptare – room for shelter.
Glasgow's traditional gangland leaders have usually been able to defend their basic retail drugs business from foreigners – not least because many have their own developed international contacts and are major operators in their own right.
However, the Albanians have had some success. Last year, Detective Chief Superintendent Stevie Whitelock, of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, made clear how high the Balkan gangs were on his organisation's priority list. "We are aware of their presence here in Scotland. Some of the individuals concerned are known to be capable of extreme violence," he said.
"The problem for the SCDEA is just how difficult it is to get information on the Albanians."
Enter Lynda Spence. The SCDEA would have been extremely eager to have anyone able to act as a mole inside Albanian organised crime groups. The agency and other law enforcement bodies routinely recruit informants from inside the criminal underworld.
The trial heard Ms Spence was an informant for the SCDEA, tipping the agency off about an Albanian gang and, allegedly, Sokol Zefaj, an Albanian businessman and her former lover.
Prosecutors moved against Mr Zefaj in June of 2011, shortly after Ms Spence disappeared. Lord Advocate Frank Mulholland obtained an order, a notice of inhibition, that prevented Mr Zefaj from selling a flat in Maxwell Road, Glasgow.
Mr Zefaj had been refused a landlord's house in multiple occupancy licence for the flat in Maxwell Road in 2009. This was also where Ms Spence lived, according to Companies House records.
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